


Diagnosis

by nut



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Doctor John Watson, Gen, Hurt Lestrade, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nut/pseuds/nut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade falls ill at a crime scene. Luckily, John Watson is on the case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diagnosis

He almost missed it. That was the thought that would haunt John, later on.

He arrived late to the crime scene that afternoon: an ordinary suburban house turned abattoir. Donovan lifted up the police tape for him without comment, which meant it must be bad in there. Sure enough. “Three victims,” Sherlock called to him from across the room. “Take a look at the cuts, will you? Chainsaw, I’m almost certain. Wounds were inflicted pre-mortem. Nothing else gives a good splatter like this.”

“Lovely,” John said, rolling his eyes. “So they let you in here on your own now? That’s unusual, isn’t it? Lestrade’s off duty today?”

“No, he’s here.” Sherlock jerked his head at the door. “He’s just stepped out. I believe he’s being sick into an evidence bag at the moment.”

“Ah,” said John. “Well. Poor sod. You can hardly blame him, I suppose.” 

There was a wretched coughing sound from down the hall that made John wince in sympathy, and a few minutes later Lestrade appeared in the doorway, fishbelly-pale. “Dr. Watson,” he said, with a curt nod. 

“Hello,” John said. “Vile one, eh?”

“No, no.” Lestrade waved a hand. “I mean--yes, it is, very, but that’s not--I’m a bit under the weather, is all. Think I ate something that didn’t agree with me.”

Donovan, who’d come up behind him while he was speaking, shook her head. “You should go home, sir, I’ve told you. Forensics is on their way, I can lead the team perfectly well on my own, and--”

“I’ll go home in a bit,” Lestrade said firmly. “This is front-page news; I’m not walking away from it right now. It’ll be a mob scene around here in another hour, there’s sure to be a press conference...”

“I can _handle_ all that,” Donovan insisted. 

They began to argue, in that overly polite way they did sometimes, and John moved away to give them space. Lestrade was a grown man and his health was his own look-out. John surveyed the bodies, made his report to Sherlock (who nodded smugly and said “yes, _obviously_ ,”) and would have allowed Sherlock to drag him off to follow up on a lead five minutes later without a second thought if he hadn’t happened to catch sight of Lestrade again as he turned to go. He’d regained some of his colour, but there was something about his pinched, inward-focused expression and the way he was holding himself that gave John pause, reminded him of...what?

It didn’t click until they were walking away from the scene. That right wrist pressed against his side, low down, then pulling away gingerly. John felt suddenly cold. It might be nothing, it was probably nothing, but even so...

"Hang on a minute," he told Sherlock, who was flagging down a cab, and started walking quickly back to the house.

"Where--what--John!" Sherlock sputtered after him, but John just flapped a hand at him and kept going.

"Something I want to check on," he called back. "Go on, if you must; I'll get another cab."

He ducked under the tape again, nodding to the officers standing guard, and got inside the front door just in time to hear Donovan's slightly panicky voice call out, "Sir? Are you all right? Do you need me to-- Sir!"

John broke into a jog and took the stairs two at a time to find Lestrade doubled over on the landing on his knees, eyes shut and face ashen, while Donovan hovered nervously at his side. She looked up at John, wide-eyed.

"He just...crumpled up," she reported. "Just after you left. He's looking really bad; has he got food poisoning, do you think?"

"No," John said, steering her carefully away by the elbow. "Get an ambulance, please. _Now._ " He knelt next to Lestrade, hand on his shoulder. "Detective Inspector Lestrade? It's John Watson. Can you speak?"

"No. I mean yes, it's--I'm fine," Lestrade gasped out, eyes still squeezed shut. "Just...need a minute. It'll pass."

"I don't think so, if you'll excuse my saying so." John felt the inspector's forehead, then his pulse. "Let's get you lying down. Easy now."

“I can’t--it’s a crime scene, there’s _dismembered bodies_ in the back bedroom not twenty metres away, I can hardly just--ah, _fuck!_ ” Lestrade cried out, quickly abandoning his halfhearted attempt to rise. 

“Easy,” John repeated. “Come on, lie back. That’s it. Where exactly does it hurt, can you show me?”

“John, _what_ on _Earth_?” Sherlock demanded, coming up the stairs behind them, and then drew up short. “Oh, for God’s sake. Lestrade, what are you playing at? And you call _me_ unprofessional; have you no sense of--”

John glanced up. “Sergeant Donovan,” he said quickly, because going by the look of her, Sherlock was about to become dismembered body number four on the scene. “Is the ambulance on its way?” She nodded. “Notify the officers at the entrance and clear the front hallway, will you? Sherlock, make yourself useful, go out to the street and wave them down when they come, show them exactly where we are.” He turned back to his patient. “Detective Inspector, I need to have a look at you; I’m just going to open your belt and untuck your shirt now, OK?”

Sherlock hadn’t moved. “His appendix,” he said.

John nodded. “Belly’s rigid,” he said, palpating carefully here and there. “There’s almost certainly a rupture. Sorry, sorry,” he told Lestrade, who’d just given an agonised cry at his touch. “All done, I’ll quit torturing you--I’m afraid I don’t happen to carry morphine around on me, but help is on the way, I promise. Sherlock, _please_ will you--”

“Going,” Sherlock said quickly. He vanished.

“Christ, I’ve been stabbed and it didn’t hurt like this,” Lestrade said through clenched teeth. “Ruptured appendix? Blokes die from that, don’t they?”

“Almost never.” John gave him his best reassuring smile. “Feels like hell, though, I know. You might _wish_ you were dead, but you’ll be back on your feet before you know it. The ambulance should be here soon; just hold tight.”

To his surprise, Lestrade took his injunction literally, reaching out to grip one of John’s hands, and he stayed that way, white-lipped and silent, holding tight, for the entire endless five minutes until the ambulance arrived.

*

"How did you catch that?" Sherlock asked him, when the ensuing sound and fury were over and they found themselves washed up like stranded shells on the grim shores of the hospital waiting room. At least half of New Scotland Yard seemed to be milling about, along with a number of pale-looking civilians, presumably relatives. John had somehow never thought of Lestrade as having siblings before, but there were apparently quite a few, and all of them seemed to have offspring. The noise was intense.

"Sorry?" John said, rubbing at his temples.

“Come on,” Sherlock said, standing up and tugging at John’s jacket sleeve. “We’ll go and get tea. It’ll be a while yet, no?”

“At least another hour before he’s out of the operating theatre,” John agreed. “I’ll tell someone we’re in the cafeteria, though, just in case.”

Sherlock waited until they had their (dreadful, dishwatery) tea before rounding on John again. "That diagnosis. You went back in. You knew. How did you know? That was brilliant."

"You do realise you're saying that out loud," John told him, playing along, and then looked up and saw that Sherlock actually meant it. Well, that was a pleasant switch, he supposed. If only he'd been in any sort of mood to appreciate it.

"It was," Sherlock said. "Brilliant medicine.” He narrowed his eyes at John, tilted his head. “And you're...not pleased about it. Why not? You may have saved his life."

John shook his head. “Donovan would have radioed for an ambulance anyway.”

“Mmm, or perhaps not. He might have insisted on going home instead, convinced her it was nothing serious, tried to tough it out on his own. People respond to pain with fear, fear with denial. Plus, a man with Lestrade’s upbringing and background, he’s bound to be a stoic: take it like a man, soldier on--”

Sherlock’s stream of observation stopped very abruptly. “Ah,” he said in a different tone. “Soldier on. Soldier. You’ve seen a case like this before. One with an unfavorable outcome.”

John stared at his hands, which were gripping the mug of tea a bit too tightly. “A kid,” he said finally. “Eighteen years old. He’d just been deployed for the first time. Should have been the easiest operation I ever got to perform out there. It should have been _fun_ , compared with-- But his commanding officer was a bastard, the kid was afraid of him, wanted to impress him with how tough he was...I don’t know. I hate stoics,” John went on, almost conversationally. “The military’s terrible for breeding them. Police are nearly as bad, I imagine.”

“The boy died, then,” Sherlock said after a bit.

“Not under the knife. Ten days later. Peritonitis. I lost a lot of patients out there, you know; that one was just particularly senseless.”

Sherlock was silent, for once. 

“Lestrade should be fine,” John said quickly. “He might have a hell of a recovery, but--”

“I know that,” Sherlock said, sounding irritated now.

“You left off from pursuing a chainsaw murderer to sit around in a hospital waiting room; forgive me, but for you that’s unusual behaviour. I thought perhaps you might be a bit concerned.”

“I’m still working on the case, in here.” Sherlock tapped his own forehead. “I would prefer to see Lestrade get through the operation before I resume physical pursuit. I suppose, if you want to call it concern... Stop trying not to smile, John, it’s very annoying. You’re worried about him yourself; it’s written all over you.”

“I’m not,” John protested, halfheartedly. “Well. Not much.”

When the news finally came through that the operation was over and that the surgeons were cautiously optimistic, though, he couldn’t stop grinning, and he didn’t care a bit who noticed.


End file.
